Senate to vote on gay rights bill by Thanksgiving

[Judi Lynn]

Source: USA Today

Senate to vote on gay rights bill by Thanksgiving
Susan Davis, USA TODAY 2:28 p.m. EDT October 28, 2013

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Senate will take up a gay rights bill before Thanksgiving, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act bans workplace discrimination by employers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Religious organizations and the U.S. military are exempted. ENDA has been introduced in nearly every Congress since 1994, and it came one vote shy of passage in 1996. It has not been given a full Senate vote since.

Federal laws already ban employer discrimination based on on race, color, sex, nationality, religion, age or disability.

"We think this vote is long overdue," said Freedom to Work founder Tico Almeida, a former counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives who helped draft the legislation. The House passed a version of the legislation in 2007, but it died in the Senate and faced a veto threat from then-President George W. Bush.


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/10/28/enda-senate-vote-gay-rights/3287009/

[gopiscrap]

1. Excellent

but it won't pass the house.

[LonePirate]

2. Exactly. The House is the chamber now where good legislation goes to die.

I would say this is just like the immigration bill except the House might pass something it calls an immigration bill. Those bigots will never pass an anti-discrimination law.

Until Dems control both houses of Congress and the presidency, this will never become law.

[gopiscrap]

3. yeah, hopefully 2014 changes that

[blkmusclmachine]

6. The House is a Chamber of Horrors. This is DOA there.

[kestrel91316]

5. We needed laws to end systematic, institutionalized discrimination against

minorities and women, in case you hadn't noticed. And LGBT's are massively discriminated against legally right now.

I'm not sure you will be happy here. We support LGBT rights in DU.

[Roarybeans]

7. Struggle until victory!

We have been rolling this boulder up hill for quite some time now. Still, I take comfort in achieving some measures of equality that I would never thought I'd see in my life time.